The 10th annual Fa La La event by the Levelland Chamber of Commerce is set for Thursday, December 8 .
A committee of 15 ladies who meet once a month for the entire year put their efforts together to provide an entertaining evening geared towards ladies who wanted to spend a fun and relaxing evening with friends.
Chamber President Mary Siders and three ladies, Lisa Huggins, Jacky Shaheen and Kelly McDonald traveled to Angleton, Texas, 10 years ago to witness their event.
“We went to their event, and we visited with those people just viewed behind the scenes,” explained Siders. “We looked at profit and losses and tried to determine if this would actually be beneficial to put together.”
Siders recalled at the first meeting in the former Honeycomb Pie Show in downtown, the group weighed the pros and cons to see if how it would be received within the community.
Eventually the group came to a similar understanding and went through with the event. Additionally, the Chamber Board has continued to approve and show support for the event throughout the years.
“We have 15 ladies, and they represent different chamber of members, and they plan the event so as soon as January,” said Siders. “We’ll start planning the 2023 event which the dates already set for December 14, 2023.”
In previous years, the chamber and committee were able to donate additional funds generated by the event but all of the proceeds from this event will go back into next year’s event due to rising costs.
Fa La La is a ticketed event with each attendee receiving a gift bag . A catered meal, a style show and different entertainment will be on hand.
“It’s just a really neat quality of life event for ladies to attend,” said Siders. “Entertainment varies as the committee makes those selections based upon what the theme is. The committee selects the prizes, we purchase all of our gifts from local people.”
With 10 years of successful Fa La La events, the muchanticipated night has continued to sell out with waiting lists.
“The event sells out every single year and three years ago because we sold every seat through sponsorships, we added 50 more seats and those seats we continue to sell out so the event continues to show growth,” explained Siders. “However, we want to keep it in the banquet hall at the Mallet because of the ambiance and we’ve about maxed out that venue so we may be at max capacity as far as vendors.” Siders praised the overall support of the community who regularly anticipate the event.
“We have a wait list for the attendees, and it sells out,” said Siders. “The sponsorship is phenomenal, and this community has a lot of businesses sponsor so that they can send their female employees. Sometimes it’s a Christmas gift for some of the female employees as they get a nice dinner.”
The committee and chamber bit out the catering and that includes bids from all Chamber members. Las Brisas is a Chamber member in Levelland and that’s who was elected to be doing the catering this year.
A favorite of attendees was the pamper stations where people could get massages, hair done, or eyebrows done. However, with Covid-19 the committee removed the pamper stations.
“Even with some of the changes, it is a fun upbeat quality of life event for a community of this size,” said Siders. “We’re really blessed to have this and of course having the Mallet is conducive to this type of event, especially that banquet hall so we’re excited it’s fun.”
This year the event held 352 seats and 27 vendors with a little over 400 people in attendance.
“This is a remarkable group of ladies, and the decorations are beautiful,” explained Siders. “The consistency of planning and attention to detail has allowed the Chamber and Fa La La committee to do this and grow.”
For anyone unfamiliar with the event or on the fence wanting to attend Siders explained that the holidays are busy time for everybody especially the moms and the ladies because their task with so many additional responsibilities.
“This is really just a time for them to come relax have a nice meal and do some last-minute shopping,” said Siders. “This is a time for them to enjoy the style show, the entertainment and just have a fun night of networking with other ladies in the area.”
With the amount of vendor requests and ticket sales, it’s starting to become a tradition for many attendees.
“For community members purchasing tickets, I can see it becoming tradition because a lot of moms, three generations of women from same families are coming,” explained Siders. “There are several families where the grandmother buys the tickets and the the mom and the grandaughter come. It’s a chance for multiple generations to spend time together and hopefully it becomes a long-standing tradition, but right now the support is just phenomenal.”